Here’s the situation: 79% of US companies have deployed AI tools. White-collar firms? 87%. Companies with 500+ employees? 91%. AI is everywhere at work now.
Except for one small detail — nobody taught anyone how to use it.
A new Express Employment Professionals–Harris Poll survey dropped a number that should make every CEO sweat: 83% of US job seekers want formal AI training from their employers. Not YouTube tutorials. Not “figure it out.” Structured, company-supported training.
And here’s the kicker — 86% of hiring managers agree. The people doing the hiring know their workers need training. They just aren’t providing it.
📊 The Numbers Don’t Lie
The survey, conducted in November 2025 and released April 2026, paints a brutally clear picture:
- 79% of US companies use AI tools (up from 66% two years ago)
- 83% of job seekers want formal AI training
- 86% of hiring managers say it should be a company priority
- Only 36% provide approved AI tool lists
- 38% just let employees use whatever tools they already know
- 62% of employed job seekers report AI at work, but only 22% use it in daily workflows
Let that sink in. AI is deployed in four out of five companies, but fewer than one in four workers actually use it day-to-day. The gap between “we have AI” and “we know what to do with it” is a chasm.
🏢 “Navigate On Your Own”
Express Employment CEO Bob Funk Jr. cut right to it: “Companies have focused on getting the technology in place, but not enough on helping people use it effectively.”
That’s the story of AI adoption in 2026 in a sentence. The tech landed. The training didn’t.
What are companies doing instead? A mishmash of half-measures: 38% let employees use familiar tools freely (translation: we bought Copilot and told people to “explore”), while only 36% even maintain an approved tool list. That’s not a strategy — that’s abdication.
Meanwhile, another report found that 62% of employers struggle to hire AI-skilled workers. You don’t say. You’d think companies would connect the dots: if workers want training and you can’t find skilled hires, maybe training your existing people is the answer?
🔄 The Vicious Cycle
This is how it plays out:
- Company deploys AI tools (check — they’ve done this)
- Workers fumble through self-learning (happening right now)
- Productivity gains stall because nobody knows the best practices
- Company blames “AI readiness” and looks for externally skilled hires
- Those hires don’t exist because nobody trained anyone
- Repeat
It’s a skills crisis manufactured entirely by companies that bought the software but skipped the instruction manual.
🇳🇿 What About New Zealand?
The survey is US-focused, but the pattern holds everywhere. NZ businesses are in the same boat — deploying AI tools faster than they can train people to use them. The difference? NZ’s smaller talent pool makes the training gap even more critical.
If you’re an NZ employer, the data is screaming at you: train your people. They want to learn. The ones who don’t get training will leave for the ones who do — or they’ll sit at their desks using ChatGPT badly and calling it “AI adoption.”
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE
Companies deployed the tools and forgot the humans. 83% of workers want formal AI training. 86% of managers agree it’s needed. Almost nobody’s providing it.
This isn’t a technology problem anymore — it’s a leadership failure. The AI is on every laptop. The training isn’t. Fix that, or watch your talent walk out the door to a company that bothered.
For workers reading this: 75% say they’ll seek out AI training on their own. If your employer won’t train you, train yourself — but remember, that makes you more valuable to the next employer too.
Related: AI Job Panic Is Sending Americans Back to School — But They’re Reskilling Into the Wrong Fields
